Just as Germany tried to win the overlordship of the world in this twentieth century so Spain tried in the sixteenth; and just as the Royal Navy was the chief, though by no means the biggest, force that has won the whole world's freedom from the Germans now, so the Royal Navy was the chief force that won world-freedom from the Spaniards then. Spaniards and Portuguese, who often employed Italian seamen, were the first to begin taking oversea empires. They gained footholds in places as far apart as India and America. Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and waded into the Pacific, sword in hand, to claim it for the King of Spain. A Portuguese ship was the first to go right round the world. The Spaniards conquered all Central and great parts of North and South America. The Portuguese settled in Brazil. While this was going on abroad France and England were taken up with their own troubles at home and with each other. So Spain and Portugal had it all their own way for a good many years. The Spanish Empire was by far the biggest in the world throughout the sixteenth century. Charles V, King of Spain, was heir to several other crowns, which he passed on to his son, Philip II. Charles was the sovereign lord of Spain, of what are Belgium and Holland now, and of the best parts of Italy. He was elected Emperor of Germany, which gave him a great hold on that German "Middle Europe" which, stretching from the North Sea to the Adriatic, cut the rest in two. Besides this he owned large parts of Africa. And then, to crown it all, he won what seemed best worth having in Central, North, and South America. [Illustration: The _Santa Maria_, flagship of Christopher Columbus when he discovered America in 1492. Length of keel, 60 feet. Length of ship proper, 93 feet. Length over all, 128 feet. Breadth, 26 feet. Tonnage, full displacement, 233.] France and England had something to say about this. Francis I wrote Charles a pretty plain letter. "Your Majesty and the King of Portugal have divided the world between you, offering no part of it to me. Show me, I pray you, the will of our father Adam, so that I may see if he has really made you his universal heirs." Nor did the two Henrys forget the claims of England. Henry VII claimed most of the eastern coast of what are now Canada and the United States, in virtue of the Cabot discoveries. In the Naval Museum at Madrid you can still see the bullock-hide map of Juan de la Cosa, which, made in the year 1500, shows St. George's Cross flying over these very parts.